


I can't slow down

by Neffectual



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Batfamily Feels, Brothers, Canon Temporary Character Death, Control, High School, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Power Play, Pseudo-Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 10:40:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4432325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neffectual/pseuds/Neffectual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason has always been the little brother, always been the spare and not the heir - but there's something about the way Dick feels beneath him which means he doesn't really care.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I can't slow down

**Author's Note:**

> Spooks the cat seemed very peturbed by me writing this instead of going to bed. Written to a combination of Jason Todd 8tracks mixes and the increasingly upset mews of a massive, white Maine Coon. (Mostly 'I am no one's son', which is an awesome mix.)

It goes like this; after a night on patrol, both of them hot with adrenaline and the heady feel of doing good, they say goodnight to Bruce and head upstairs to their shared bedroom, before closing the door and leaping on each other, tearing at the civilian clothes they just struggled into. For all that Dick can always best him in sparring practice, he somehow always seems to lose when Jason’s half naked and pressing against him. 

“Brother.” Jason says, just to watch Dick shiver, to give him that edge to have him pinned against the door, “Do you yield, brother?”

Dick’s answer is always a silent nod, eyes locked with Jason’s, before he looks away. Jason loves that, in a family where so few words of comfort or praise are ever given, Dick will take anything given to him with gratitude.

“My golden boy,” Jason purrs, stroking Dick’s jaw where the stubble’s starting to come in after a long day, “On a school night?”

Even Bruce’s knock on the door to tell them to go to bed can’t silence Dick’s moans as Jason leaves bruises on his throat, one hand busily grasping both their cocks.

 

At school, Jason barely shows up, expected to be Dick’s little brother in everything, never mind that he outstrips him at languages and history. Jason loves books, fuck what people say, and treats them with the proper respect. Dick breezes through classes – never top, but close enough that Bruce doesn’t say anything. Jason wonders if that’s how Dick views his whole life, and especially their trysts; never quite top, but good enough.

“You could try to get on with my friends.” Dick says, one night, and Jason just gives him a look from the other side of the room.

“Your friends are as intellectual as a cheese sandwich.” Jason retorts, rolling his eyes, “Besides, what would we have to talk about, the size of your prick?”

Dick’s answer is to heft his package with a hand and grin, until Jason throws a pillow at his face.

“I mean it, though.” He says absently, later, “You should hang out with us.”

“I can find my own friends, thanks.” Jason says, and doesn’t mention that it’s hard enough sharing Dick when he’s in the manor, never mind at school. Better to keep his distance.

 

Jason’s always been second best, always been the little brother, so sick of being the second child that it hurts, and he gets to have Dick on his back with Jason’s hand on his throat, holding him and down and making it hard for Dick to beg, to plead for Jason to fuck him. He tries, anyway, because that’s Dick, always a trier, always putting the effort in, fucking varsity cheerleader flexible and so damn pretty that sometimes it hurts to look at him. 

Jason loves that it’s him who gets to see Dick like this, no more the popular pretty boy who moves like silver and fucks like silk; that’s the other Dick Grayson, the one who belongs to the sluts at school, to the Titans, to Roy fucking Harper – this Dick is all his, all Jason’s creation and all his to worship or ruin as he sees fit. If Dick is the golden boy, Jason is the bad boy, all leather jackets and curling smoke from endless cigarettes, the knife to Dick’s friendly handshake, the scowl to his smile. He moves like violence in the night, like a leashed tiger just waiting for a chance to turn around and strike. He doesn’t listen – and that’s exactly what gets him killed.

 

_(Dick cries every night for a month when Jason dies, looking at the empty bed across the way – he moves out to Bludhaven just so he can stop feeling the ache, stop crying out at nightmares where he was faster, stronger, brighter, and those few seconds saved Jason from Joker’s cruel games. He wishes he wasn’t as good at identifying the dead as he is, wishes he could pretend it was anyone else, wishes he could un-see how long it had taken Jason to die, wishes he could feel those hands on him just one more time, and there would be nothing but Jay, Jay, little brother._

_As it is, his tears taste like failure, his love tastes like hurt, and he tries not think about the way Bruce’s voice catches on his brother’s name, the way Jay is all he thinks about when he gets a hand around himself, and how his sobs are inconsolable after he comes. He continues as Nightwing, continues fighting crime, and if he puts himself a little more at risk and works too many nights, Bruce doesn’t seem to notice. Dick swears that if he ever gets his hands on Joker, even Batman won’t stop him from breaking the freak down for spare parts, and leaving them in dumpsters all over Gotham. No one hurts his family and gets away with it.)_

 

When he comes back, everything has changed; Dick is still Nightwing, but there’s a new Robin, like Bruce didn’t even wait until his body was in the ground to pick up a new child to throw into Gotham’s seedy underworld without a qualm. It’s unfair to Tim, how he is, but Jason can’t bring himself to care as he looks as the kid in the suit – his suit – and sees the easy way Dick drapes an arm around him. Dick’s older now, a man, grown up pretty and smart-mouthed, and it’s almost as if he doesn’t miss Jason at all.

“How’s it hanging?” is the first thing Jason asks when he arrives on the rooftop next to Nightwing, hood down, but still hoping that – somehow – Dick will know who he is. Their standoff is tense, and Jason appreciates that Dick has learnt new tricks over the years, and does not give up easily. When Robin arrives on the scene, however, Jason steps back and drops over the edge of the roof, not grappling away until he’s close to the ground. 

“Who was that?” he can hear Robin asking, reedy kid’s voice from behind the domino mask.

“No idea.” Nightwing replies.

Jason can’t pretend it doesn’t sting a bit that the man who used to cry and beg and writhe on his cock can’t even recognise his voice.

 

Breaking up bar fights is what he’s good at, so Jason starts there, and if he bleeds the perps a little, then who cares? A voice in the back of his head says that Bruce would care, and that Dick would, if they knew, but he ignores it, chasing it away. Dick and Bruce are perfectly happy with their new Robin, and they don’t need him anymore. When he sees Robin and Nightwing out on the rooftops, he avoids them now, though he’ll sometimes catch them calling him Red Hood. As good a name as any, he supposes.  
Nightwing gets the jump on him only once.

“Hood, what side are you even on?” he starts, and Jason tries not to jump out of his skin, tries not to go to his brother and confess every crime he’s ever committed.

“I like order.” He says, shortly, “Just don’t mind being a bit bloody when I get it.”

“This is Batman’s territory.” Dick says, and Jason’s heart aches, hands ache to pin that lean body down and feel those acrobat’s muscles against him again, to hear Dick mewl in pain and pleasure.

“I know.” He replies, and then he’s gone, blinking underneath the hood in the hope that it could stave off tears.

 

When Tim – he’s learnt the name because Dick isn’t that careful when he thinks he’s alone with the kid – vanishes off the streets, to be replaced by a blonde girl, Jason takes over some of the workload, but it gets harder and harder to keep out of Bruce’s way. Steph seems to be a girl with a wicked sense of humour, smart and bitter, having seen enough of the world to know how it works. He’d like her more if she wasn’t wearing the Robin uniform, he thinks, but she blows him a kiss as thanks for a rescue one night, and he can’t help but admire her courage.

Dick seems snowed under with everything going on, and once Tim is back as Robin, he vanishes from the streets, Bruce back on patrols, and so Jason goes into hiding. If Dick didn’t know him, what chance does Bruce have? But there’s always a chance, and Jason doesn’t like leaving anything up to fate anymore, not after how that bitch fucked him over.   
He can’t stay hidden forever, he knows that, but watching Bruce and Tim work as a pair puts a bitter taste in his mouth, and he thinks to himself that he’ll wait one more day. One more day, until Dick is back, and then, and then….

 

Choice is taken away when Bruce unmasks him and stares in uncomprehending horror at his face. Jason snarls, twisting in Batman’s grip like a scruffed kitten, and breaks free just as Dick lands on the roof with Robin.

“Jay?” Dick’s voice is a hoarse whisper, but it still cuts across the quiet rooftop, “But you – you died.”

“I got better?” Jason suggests, weakly, before Dick is across the roof and holding him tight enough to hurt, “Easy, brother mine, I need those ribs.”

Bruce’s hand is on his shoulder, and Dick’s arms are around him, and fuck, this could be so easy if he’d just played by the rules the last few months.

“I… I killed people.” He says, and looks at Bruce first, doesn’t want to see what Dick’s face is like, “I was – “

“Doesn’t matter.” Dick says, and his look to Bruce is steely, determined, and Bruce nods underneath the cowl, “But we need to take this discussion back to the cave.”

“It’s past my bedtime.” Tim chips in, wryly, and smiles at Jason, “But I can stay up to meet my older brother.”

Jason’s never been so relieved that they’re such a fucked up little family.

 

Turns out, surprise surprise, that it’s not that easy after all. Bruce wants to retrain Jason, make him more like Tim, make him something different as a new part of the Batfamily. Jason tries to pretend he’s the same person, but being dead is a fucking game changer, and he can’t pretend he didn’t come back a little wrong.

“Fuck, Jay, please.” Dick begs him, and Jason holds both his wrists in one hand, pressing down on the bone. Dick got older and stayed willowy, that same dancer’s build that keeps him silent on his feet, but Jason got muscle, for all that he stayed shorter than Dick. It will always be a challenge to hold his brother down, but they’re a little more evenly matched these days.

“What do you want, babe?” he asks, voice sugar sweet, like Dick’s not hard beneath him, cock red and leaking at the way Jason’s drawing this out. It’s taken him six months to earn his place back in Dick’s bed, and he’s not about to waste it.

“Just you, Jay, always you.” Dick manages to pant out, and, well, Jason’s never been able to deny his big brother when he pleads so prettily. Dick still fits his body in all the best ways, arching his back in a movement which is almost inhuman, but so gorgeous that it’s all Jason can do not to keep him like that for as long as possible.

 

They settle into something which is so far from perfect – but family is like that, and there will always be bumps in the road along the way. Damian is a fucking thorn in Jason’s side, and Tim’s a geeky little shrimp, but Dick likes them, and so Jason tolerates their chatter. Steph, Cass and Barb are much more fun, even if they do like to paint his nails when he hangs out with them.

Family movie night has become a Tuesday night tradition – as the night with the lowest crime rate – and sometimes Bruce will even come in, mostly to shout at them to stop throwing popcorn around as Alfred tuts about the state of the upholstery, like they’re not both so happy to see all of the kids under one roof so often and without bloodshed. It’s a bit happy families for Jason, but Steph cuddles up to him, and Dick curls up behind him, and he remembers that these are his favourite people in the whole world, and there’s not a single person in that room he wouldn’t die for, even the little demon spawn.

Afterwards, Steph and Tim head off to Tim’s room, with Cass carrying Damian, who tends to fall asleep early on. Barbara usually gets Bruce to drive her home, which gets him out of the house, and Dick and Jayson choose between Dick’s room at the manor and Jason’s apartment. Some nights, Jason likes to prove he can take it slow, that he loves Dick more than any words could say, but after being cooped up for movie night, he struggles. Thankfully, Dick’s never changed – he still loves Jason’s hands in his hair, lifting his head as Jason fucks him from behind, pace brutal and punishing. He still loves the bruises, the scratches and hickeys suckled in as marks of ownership, of love, a promise that he’s always coming back.

“Little wing.” Dick whispers, like a fucking prayer, like those two words will keep Jason from harm, and all Jason can do is speed up the pace, hold Dick steady with his body as they both spiral towards oblivion, and keep on coming back to this wonderful, glorious, beautiful man.

"Mine." Jason says, then softens his tone to repeat it, "Mine, always. Always."

If Dick wants him to live, to take fewer risks and stop rushing in, he'll try - but when it comes to Dick, he can't slow down.


End file.
